What is Reddit's opinion of ShellExView?

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It probably isn't Explorer itself consuming the memory. It probably is a misbehaving shell extension that is leaking memory. Unfortunately some applications "helpfully" install shell extensions without informing the user and it is not uncommon for some of those shell extensions are buggy or written improperly causing all kinds of problems.

I suggest running ShellExView or similar utility and taking a look at what shell extensions you have installed, particularly those that are not published by Microsoft.

I had the "file explorer opening slow"-problem on an ASUS laptop a few months ago. It was caused by a NVIDIA driver shell extensions ("NvAppShExt Class" or "OpenGLShExt Class", can't remember which one). After disabling it with ShellExView, it opened as snappy as before.

ShellExView ( http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html ) is pretty easy to use, so if the culprit is somewhere else, you can easily re-enable the shell extensions again.

Hope that helps at least a little bit!

Often this can happen if you've installed a piece of software that adds something to the right-click context menu. If the software isn't fully compatible with the version of Windows you're running, or it has a bug, it can cause explorer to crash on a right-click.

If you think that might be the case, install this free program: -

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Run it and sort by Type. Look for all of the "Context Menu" items in pink in the Type column, as the pink ones are entries added by third party software. Right-click on each one and disable them. Check to see if the issue persists. If it doesn't, re-enable each third party context menu item one at a time, testing the right-click functionality after each one until you find the culprit.

The roxio shell extension for windows explorer installs critical files into one of the windows temp folders, which is deleted by some virus removal tools. The fix is to disable the shell extension with shellexview or uninstall roxio. This is a common problem with HP printer drivers as well.

Bloody Roxio -- there's a wall and a revolution awaiting these people.

I had this problem, and a solution ended up here, scanning on Roxio and manually removing everything of theirs.

I also tried something else, but my notes don't indicate whether I tried it before or after the above: this was used to disable the context switch. May I suggest you try this first, and only the above scanner if this doesn't work.

It could be because a third party app has added something to the right-click context menu that is causing explorer to crash.

You can check for that by installing this: -

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Run the program and sort by Type. In the Type column, look for any "Context Menu" items marked in pink as they're the ones added by third party programs. Right-click each one and disable them, then see if the issue still persists. If it doesn't, you can re-enable them one at a time until you track down the offending entry.

There's some weird crap going on with Intel drivers I think. I'm experiencing random cursor freezes for 1-2s sometimes (like launching Firefox) but at least I was able to fix the damn desktop freeze on right click. Here's how:

• Get ShellExView (you probably want the x64), launch it
• Options => Hide All Microsoft Extensions - we don't need them
• Find the module with igfxDTCM Module description (or similar). Name should be TheDeskTopContextMenu Class. There are probably two, it doesn't matter which one you select
• Right-click, Disable Selected Item
• Options => Restart Explorer

Check now

It sounds like you have a shell extension that's acting up. That's the usual cause of this kind of freeze/hang. You can use ShellExView to list and disable extensions until you figure out what might be causing the issue.

> The problem disappears if I start Windows in Safe Mode with Networking but I can't get it to go away on standard startup.

Use ShellExView to disable unnecessary components, this issue probably come from your third party softwares instead Firefox, hang from Windows shell.

Run Autoruns and check what's in context menus (you might have forgotten something). Also check the other sections, something might influence this.

Run ShellExView, do the same (it sees some static extensions Autoruns doesn't).

If you want to go completely clean, make sure no third-party dynamic or static extensions are enabled in Autoruns/ShellExView + no third-party apps are running (stuff like user experience components for some drivers may mess with Explorer).

If this is still not enough, I'd go with the usual routine in case something happens and you don't know what. Run Process Monitor, start recording, right-click video file, wait a second, stop recording. Filter clearly unrelated stuff then go through the rest and see if there are any errors and where they cascade from. That might give some pointers at what's wrong.

If it's a video file specifically then additionally, who knows, it might be related to one of your video codecs - maybe when you click a file, it tries to show a preview in some panel somewhere and hangs.

Have you installed any software that adds entries to the right-click menu? That can be the cause of this.

You can test for the above by using ShellExView: -

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Run the program and sort by Type. In the Type column, look for any "Context Menu" items marked in pink as they're the ones added by third party programs. Right-click each one and disable them, then see if the issue still persists. If it doesn't, you can re-enable them one at a time until you track down the offending entry.

See if disabling any non-Microsoft Explorer shell extensions (esp. ones installed/updated recently) helps: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Also see if there is any "odd" DLLs referenced in the AppInit_DLL key. I had a problem with Explorer in which dragging a file would cause it to crash. I disabled a lot of shell extensions to no avail, but on a whim I used Process Hacker to see what DLLs were loaded into the explorer.exe process and I noticed a beta module loaded (via the key I mentioned earlier) that I use to disable theme signature checking. I grabbed the latest version and my Explorer problem was solved.

I'd look for a non-microsoft ShellExecute hook with ShellExView. A buggy one can delay/prevent programs from starting up. You might need safe mode to run it.

Did you install anything recently that would have added an option?

For me it was WinRAR's options I guess, it was a long time ago so can't recall.I used this one to remove the problem causing menu item- http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html
Would usually be from some application that you've installed.

Do you have any non-default shell extensions installed? If so try to use shexview to disable them (you can re-enable them if that doesn't fix your issue).

I second the other person. It's probably a shell extension or codec (not sure if those get called by the native shell extensions).

Try to use something like ShExView to disable all third party extensions. If it stops hogging memory after restarting explorer you can turn the extension back on, one by one. That way you can figure out the culprit.

Two things popped:

• Given the "[ENABLESHELLEXECUTEHOOKS]" in the "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\POLICIES\EXPLORER" I would say the virus probably used a .dll too, so if none of the softwares you used removed one it's probably still in your system BUT it shouldn't cause any bug since it removed the [ENABLESHELLEXECUTEHOOKS] and therefore should not be loaded (supposedly).

• You can use ShellExView to check if you have anything that is loaded and shouldn't be: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

• Check every value in "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\POLICIES\EXPLORER" by default, all should have a value of 0 except the "NoActiveDesktop" which has a value of 1. All should be binaries (so no other value than 0 or 1).

2nd thing : HXXPS is usually used to NOT load a webpage and your shortcuts were corrupted (but should now be fixed by ADWCleaner).

The shell (aka explorer.exe, or Windows Explorer) crashed on shut down. I see that from time to time if I try to shut down / restart immediately after the device has booted and is logging me in, but otherwise I don't. If it's crashing like that, you might want to try disabling and/or uninstalling applications that have shell extensions - nirsoft makes a handy tool for doing testing. I'd guess you've got something installed that's crashing when Explorer closes.

I was able to resolve my issue. The issue ended up being a shell extension for Cubby. Using ShellExView I was able to disable a context menu item titled "LogMeIn.Cubby.FileContextMenuExt64 Class" restarted Windows Explorer and the problem was resolved.

Additional help can be found here post #5.

I have submitted a support ticket with LogMeIn. Hopefully they can fix whatever bug is causing this.

Good luck to the others!

I use this program for changing the context menu.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

When you find an entry that you think is suspect, right-click the entry and select disable, then check if the entry is gone from your context menu.

Edit: just tested, I had to logoff and login to see a change.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

I use this to clear out all of those sub menu options that get added when I install new programs (like when you right click and there are media player and zip options in the menu?)

http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html

That's the anti-virus I use, it's very low-resource but one of the best in all catch tests I've seen.

I turn off a few animation options in windows, visual effects.

I run chkdsk every month or so.

For my SSD (Samsung 840 EVO 256gb) I run the tool to optimize it on occasion.

I turn off just about every autorun/startup with msconfig.

I disabled hibernate (powercfg.exe /hibernate off

Set my power settings for the highest performance I can.

Don't install a bunch of crap I don't need.

Do a yearly fresh install.

Hi there, sounds like you're having some fun with this system

Ok lets start with the right click thing, as I think this will solve your Explorer crashes too (where you desktop refreshes).

Download ShellExView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Install it and then fire it up.

This will essentially list all the programs that are tied to your right click menu (as well as others)

In the Options menu choose to Mark Non-Microsoft extensions, then disable all the non-microsoft ones.

Now click the Options menu again and choose to REstart Explorer. This will cause your desktop refresh again.

Try to right click asgain? Fixed? If so then you need to go through and enabled all the items you just disabled, one at a time, restarting explorer and right clicking after each one. Once you find the one that causes your right click to slow down then either leave it disabled or uninstall the application associated with it.

• Good luck

Uninstalling should solve the problem. If it presits, Nirsoft has a great, free utility called ShellExView that will allow you to edit your shell in windows to display only the entries you want.

Most likely there is a server component that was installed on both of these computer. Some sort of program in the past, may still be running, but basically the program is trying to run or do something and is missing files.

It really sounds like there used to be something on the computer and your users are triggering it doing something with either another program or within Windows itself.

Things to check: Services, Run entries in the registry, Explorer Shell Extensions(Tool), Check for any installed Server Tools, look at errors in the System Logs for things that can't start correctly or just seem to have a weird error.

For me the issue was caused by a Microsoft provided extension

MF Media Source Pack Property Handler

version 10.0.18362.719 (WinBuild.160101.0800)

Disabling this using the shell extension viewer linked in another comment here (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html) stopped the hanging when viewing a folder with ogg files, though obviously no information like length of the audio file, or title/artist metadata is available in explorer now.

It seems like that property handler only provides info for ogg and related extensions (.ogg, .ogv, .ogm, .opus, and a few others)

It doesn't exist within settings but in Windows you can use ShellExView a small free utility that shows all shell extensions and allows you to disable and re-enable MEGA's context menu. http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Open the application and scroll down until you find MEGA (Context Menu) in the left hand list. Right click that item and choose Disable Selected Items. Open Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) and highlight Windows Explorer then press Restart. The MEGA context menu should now have been removed. To restore context menu open ShellExView and select Enable Selected Items then restart Windows Explorer as before.

I don't know if this is specifically what you are looking for, but you can use this utility to disable/enable these overlays on an individual basis (even individual icons of a given program that does overlays if you still want to see some from that program but not all).

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Could be corrupt context menu or an extension thats problematic.

Download shellxview http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Then go into options select hide all microsoft extensions, then disable all those thats left, and see if that fixed it. Then enable a few at a time to find the problematic one.

If the previous didn't help you might have enabled transparency in personalization> windows color and appearance, try disabling transparency.

I had the same problem with the WinUAE Amiga emulator, and there it was caused by a broken shell extension. Get ShellExView, disable all extensions (a restart might be required), then check if it's working. If it does, re-enable them one by one until you find the problem.

Did you install dropbox?

The right click context menu is your likely culprit. There is a program for finding all the installed right click handlers.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

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It can also be a disconnected network location.

Which Windows version and edition is that?

To me, it seems like a logger software is installed into your system. Try scanning your system for malware/virus first.

If nothing is detected, the only thing I could think of is that the logger is a shell extension. So for this case, you may want to try checking what shell extensions are installed in your system using Nirsoft ShellExView.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Use it to check each registered shell extension and find any which is third party and is suspicious or you don't remember installing that software.

I was able to get help on another site. Here is how I fixed my issue. Go to this link http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html use this program to disable what ever you think is locking you up (turn them back on if it doesn't fix your issue obviously.) I Disabled "Browser Helper Object" types and that fixed my problem.

The guy in this post https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/26931-file-explorer-crashing-when-trying-rename-folders.html explains it better than I do. Hope this helps you.

This happens when there's a broken/incompatible "shell extension" installed.

You know when you get new additions to the right click menu after installing software? For example, when you install MalwareBytes (malwarebytes' shell extension is unlikely to blame here, just using as example) it adds a right click entry for "Scan with MalwareBytes".

I think you have a broken shell extension.

Install "ShellExView" from here and remove any shell extensions you don't use. Then restart and try again.

I used ShellExView to disable one on my system (the AMD Radeon settings in the top of your screenshot).

Unzip and run ShellExView, find the entry, right-click and select disable. Then select Restart Explorer from the options menu to see if it got rid of the entry.

Also try http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Some context menu entries are directly specified in the registry. Other times the registry causes Explorer to load a DLL which then adds a context menu entry.

First thing I'd suspect is an Explorer shell extension ruining things after an automatic windows update. I had this a few times on Windows 7 as well. The mousepointer remains moving but the rest of Windows is just stuck.

You could check extensions with a tool like this http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html Unfortunately there will be lots of them, and you will enjoy using them so it's going to be annoying to even try removing some. Also if it is infact caused by Windows Update it won't neccesarily be the shell extension that was installed last.

You should probably try to look into your windows event logbook if any descriptive error was captured around the time it starts hanging. But chances are it won't even get to writing it to disk when it is waiting forever. You could also tinker around with http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/what_is_hang.html but I have never used that before.

Edit: not to be snarky but I hope you are going to look into making backups every once in a while from now on.

Worthwhile looking at NirSoft' ShellExView and using it to disable all non microsoft shell extensions, if it works when you do that you can re-enable them all and then start removing them one by one till you find the culprit

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

When you run the app you can go into options and select hide all microsoft extensions then select everything that's left and press F7 to disable them. You can use F8 to enable one/selection

ok, so this one is pretty easy, there is an editor that can remove stuff from the right click menu, the problem is 90% are context sensitive.

but here is the app: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

My guess is that you have a Shell extension that eat all the cpu.

Download http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html and look at the extension that support the type of file you have in the folder you were browsing. It might help you find the culprit.

You could also get process explorer, right-click on explorer.exe -> property -> threads and look at the .dll that eat all the cpu. Not sure if it will show the right dll tho.

I had the same problem and was able to pinpoint the culprit by using the excellent (and free) Shell Extensions Manager by NirSoft. I tried using autoruns from Sysinternals but the latest version as of this writing was very buggy, so I would strongly recommend against using it.

Here are the steps which worked for me, and not tied to a specific program like WinCDEmu (although it should also fix it).

1. Save your work.
2. Launch shexview.exe
3. Run taskmgr.exe (Task Manager) and kill all explorer processes (in the "Details" tab).
4. Disable all extensions in Shell Extensions Manager (select them and choose "Disable selected items")
5. Run explorer.exe from Task Manager > File > Run new task.
6. Check if the behavior is fixed. If it is, then continue, otherwise, reenable all extensions previously disabled and continue looking for an alternative solution as this one will not help you.
7. Enable some extensions starting with those you think are unlikely to cause an issue (in my case it was a "Context menu" extension from Boxifier), and repeat steps 3-6 until you have found the culprit.
8. When the culprit is found, just leave it disabled and the issue should be solved! You can report the bug to the developer of the responsible app so that they can fix it.

It's often caused by third party software that adds an entry to the right-click context menu. To troubleshoot that, install this: -

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Run it and sort by Type. Look for all of the "Context Menu" items in pink in the Type column, as the pink ones are entries added by third party software. Right-click on each one and disable them. Check to see if the issue persists. If it doesn't, re-enable each third party context menu item one at a time, testing the right-click functionality after each one until you find the culprit.

I gave the same advice to someone with the exact same problem the other day and in their case it turned out to be 7-Zip that was causing it.

I had the same issue.. Uninstalled QuickSFV and it solved for me

if you don't have QuickSFV, try uninstalling any other app that adds a context menu item ... you can try this app and disable each one individually before uninstalling. between disables, restart windows explorer and test..

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Alright, that tells me that your system files aren't damaged. I found a couple more things you could try, but I'm not sure they will fix it. Here is the first option quoted from sevenforums.
>Most of the time Explorer crashes due to a bad or corrupt Context Menu. The best way to troubleshoot this is to download ShellExView. ShellExView is an excellent tool to view and manage all installed shell extensions. The rule is to disable non-Microsoft context menu handlers one-by-one and verify if the problem is solved. If disabling one does not solve the problem, undo the disabled item and disable the next non-Microsoft handler. Do the same until the problem is solved and finally identify the culprit. Scroll right to see the Company Name column in ShellExView.

ShellExView can be found here.

A corrupt user profile could also cause Explorer to crash. Here are some instructions on how to fix this. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-corrupted-user-profile#1TC=windows-7

I really can't think of anything else that may help. If you do decide to reinstall and have any questions, just ask.

Is it only Windows Explorer that crashes? My first guess would be that you have a bad shell extention installed. Shell extentions are like plug-ins for Explorer and the desktop environment that give you things like special context menus and file preview handling. Many programs will include them as part of the normal install.

Download this tool and disable any extensions that you suspect might be causing this issue. If you can identify the problem is caused by a shell extension then consider uninstalling or reinstalling the related software.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

(This website has a lot of great tools in general!)

If you are running sfc consider running the Windows Update Readiness Tool first. A function of the tool is that it will update the file catalog used for repairs/updates. Using sfc can be more successful afterwards.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/what-is-the-system-update-readiness-tool

I sorted out a similar problem with a great little utility called Shellex Shell Extension Manager

This article Link may also be helpful

> I did delete a process from Norton internet security, (ccsvchst.exe) because it was using way too much of my ram.

Never do that. If you want to remove an application always uninstall it, don't just delete the application's files.

You might be able to fix this by uninstalling Norton Internet Security and reinstalling it. Or if it has a "repair" option, you can try that.

Alternatively, you could try this:

Use NirSoft's Shell Extension Viewer to see all registered shell extensions. Disable them all and see if the problem goes away. If it does, re-enable them one by one until you determine which is the culprit (based on your post I suspect it will be something related to Norton).

Before running sfc, I'd start by uninstalling or disabling any shell extensions which add context menu items when you right click. You can appraise any possible culprits with this program: ShellExView.

Most likely some shell extension that hooks into the Computer view is preventing it from working correctly.

You can try to play around with ShellExView to see if that fixes anything.

Alright well let's move on to the possible corruption of your context menu (aka right click menu).

Download ShellExView from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html . if you install it, run it. Sort by "Type" column and look for anything in that column that says "Context Menu" and that is ALSO Highlighted Pink. Right click a single Context Menu item and disable it. See if that helps your right clicking on an image in Windows Explorer. If not, re-enable the disabled item and move on to the next Context Menu type in the list that is also pink.

If you go through and end up disabling them (one at a time) and nothing seems to help your right click menu I'll have to get back to you. Kind of out of ideas at this point.

Edit: edited for clarity.

I use autoruns and shellexview to disable third party stuff I don't want running all the time. Just be careful not to disable things you need.

In the past (2000 and pre-SP3 XP) you could use bootvis to see what was taking so long during bootup. I suppose the modern replacement for Vista/7 is the Windows Performance Analysis Toolkit, but I've never used it.